Surname :  Vrohidis

First Name :  Elias

Year of birth :  1984 (I’m still under guarantee ;-))

Place of birth :  Thessaloniki, Greece

Academic studies (apart from studying life on the road) :  Bachelor in Computer and Communication Science, from the Technological Educational Institution of Serres, Greece

Professions (various from time to time) : waiter, cook’s assistant, computer technician, computer programmer, car mechanic, columnist, writer and lately, skipper on sail-boats.

I like :

• adventure travelling
• meeting people with different cultures
• living in nature in a simple way
• photographing
• writing
• feta (the cheese! It’s what I miss most when I travel…)
• listening to good, old rock clear and loud (another thing I cannot fully enjoy while on the road 🙁 )

I don’t like :

• drinking alcohol (with the exception of raki and rakomelo, famous typical Greek drinks, and maybe some liqueurs)
• wild parties with loud music, especially if it is the kind of music I hate
• the question: “Which is the best country you visited?”
• the prediction of impending calamities and stories of unbelievable disasters in the countries I intend to visit, foreseen by people who have never been there, having the television as their only source of information.

   The passion for adventure travelling was in me as long as I can remember myself! As a child, my friends and I used to hang out in the forest situated close to my house. Family vacations in nature were a regular activity of ours. Later, when I grew old enough to travel by myself, I started to discover all the beauties of Greece travelling in every possible way. My first trip abroad took place in the age of 19. I travelled in Sofia, Bulgaria, for four days, along with my best friend (Thanasis, you little devil, does it ring a bell?), using public transportation.

   My first “real” journey abroad was made solo in Italy, a couple of years later. I was wandering about through the entire country for over a month, mostly by train (InterRail).

La piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. My first "real" trip abroad in the age of 21.

   By that time, I was making all my excursions in Greece using an old and sturdy 4X4 (Asia Rocsta), which I had bought in the age of 19, working hard, even two jobs for a certain period. My dream was to fully equip it and travel to Africa! I could realize that it was a very distant dream, but I was focused towards it and very determined. After my journey to Italy, however, my desire for travelling had grown beyond my expectations, and I wanted to travel abroad as soon as I could, this time by my own vehicle. Due to my limited budget, however, this was not possible by car, so I’ve decided to turn to motorcycles. Untill then, I was not using motorcycles often, because I was considering them to be very dangerous and I was quite skeptical of riding them.

   But motorcycles were meant to be my great love, for this unique sense of freedom, as well as their mechanical simplicity, bringing the dream of such a long trip a step closer. Therefore, I decided to sell my car and totally give in to the world of two wheels!